


On the Westward Winds

by baethoven



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: 1930's AU, Body Horror, Demonic Possession, Demons, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-28 11:32:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17182166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baethoven/pseuds/baethoven
Summary: Armitage Hux is on a train to Los Angeles to bury his estranged father. When the train breaks down in the Coachella desert, Hux meets a young man in a dusty bar with ice cold skin and pupils black as night.1930's AU set in Southern California.Done in collaboration with littleststarfighter!





	On the Westward Winds

**Author's Note:**

> Please see notes at the end

In the beginning there was light, a hateful thing that shone down from the heavens, burning the bright blue skies to ash. A white and angry light which scorched everything to tepid browns and beiges in its midday rage, so bright that Armitage Hux found himself caught in it’s rage, walking into a bar at the indecent hour of 11 am.

The door to the bar was heavy, a partition between the sweltering heat of mid-day desert and cooler, darker places. The wood was old beneath Hux's palms as he pushed inside. The establishment was full, worn men with leathered skin and sun bleached clothes, ranchers and farmers peppered among the other pilgrims fighting their way out from the unforgiving heat. The room was so thick with smoke Armitage felt he was pushing through a dense fog.

For all the bustle of the place, there was just one free seat open at the bar. Beside it sat a tall man with dark waving hair and broad shoulders; Armitage didn't let himself see more beyond it. He simply took the stool and ordered a beer. When it was placed before him, it was lukewarm and entirely unappealing.

“God damn,” Hux grumbled as he grabbed the glass.

The man beside him shifted, his broad shoulders slithering in Hux’s peripheral. When he spoke, his voice was low. It broke over the consonances, raspy and worn. “An awfully strong curse for such a small inconvenience.”

Hux looked up at the man properly- pale like marble and built just as hard, with thick ribbons of muscle that peaked out from the collar of his shirt. He swallowed down the damning lick of arousal with the flat beer and asked the stranger, “Are you scolding me?”

“Hardly,” he replied.

“Not the religious, moralizing type?” Hux asked.

“Not moralizing, no,” the man said.

“Glad to hear it,” Hux said. “Because damn this place to hell, as well as the God forsaken train that brought me out to this God forsaken desert."

The man laughed at Hux with an uncomfortably loud laugh that cracked above the murmur of the bar, unrestrained to Hux’s Eastern sensibilities.

“Then why are you here?” he asked.

“A family errand. I plan to leave as soon as I can, if they ever fix the fucking train.” Hux sipped the beer and scowled again. “And what about you? What brings you out to this wasteland?”

A wave of expressions crossed the man’s face until he settled on bemused. He smirked at Hux and shrugged.

“I’ve been riding the railways for sometime. I decided to see what kind of vices they have this far west.”

“Vices,” Hux scoffed, returning to his drink. “That’s all I seem to hear the closer we get. What else could possibly attract people so far out from civilization?”

The man grabbed Hux’s drink, pressed his plush lips to the rim of the glass and sipped deeply from the amber. Hux stared him down with narrowed eyes, but his pulse was hot just from the shape of the other man’s mouth. Vices indeed.

“Fertile lands,” the man suggested, licking the head from his lips. “Wealth, oranges and cattle.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Fruit trees and greenery. You’d think they have the Garden of Eden out here.”

“Doesn’t exist,” the man said, returning the beer to Hux.

Hux grabbed his beer. It was cool to the touch, the glass wet from condensation. When he drank from it, he finally felt satisfied for the first time in days. It was impossible, so Hux decided not to think about it.

“How long do you think your train will take?” the man asked.

“‘As long as it takes’,” Hux said, mimicking the flat midwestern accent of one of the rail workers.

“Then you should probably find some shelter,” the man suggested. “Some place to shade that pale skin while you wait.”

Hux shivered at the cold that washed over him, sipping a little deeper from his beer. He licked his lips and nodded at the man. “Best to snag a room before the others.”

 

* * *

  
When he was a young boy, Armitage had been clawing through his father’s closet, searching for a wooden boat that had been taken from him in a fit of anger. It was full of black jackets and waistcoats, fine cotton shirts that were ill-fitted to the stern militaristic stature and large set stomach of his father, hanging like veils and shrouding everything in darkness. In the futhest recesses, where the dying flames of the evening candles could no longer touch, Hux reached desperately out, hoping for his toy. Instead, his fingers found blunt corners and smooth surfaces- the light revealed it to be an old shoe box.

To call Brendol Hux a sentimentalist would have been a slander against the man; the only discarded thing he ever seemed to hang onto was Armitage himself, much to the dismay of Brendol’s uncaring wife. But when Armitage opened the lid of the box, a colorful array of papers glimmered like jewels. Old produce labels showed seas of grape vines, a fair skinned woman named Dinuba whose arms were overflowing with produce, jagged mountains that overlooked gentle green hills and blue oceans that sparkled with diamonds. Everything was vibrant, and the promises were bold: “A Mediterranean land without marshes or malaria, snow capped alps gazing over the balmy warm lands below- Our very own Swiss-Italy”. “The orange groves are over abundant- pick your breakfast from your windowsill.”

Armitage sifted through the aging papers, the advertisements for cheap rail cars out west and pictures of healthy, robust women picking fruit, and felt the shame that comes with stumbling upon another’s secret. He felt like he was peering into his father’s dreams, glimpsing at something so personal that punishment was sure to come. Carefully, he put the lid back on and pushed the box back into the further, darkest corner where perhaps no one would ever find it again. From then on, _Los Angeles_ was something that seemed to linger in the back of Armitage’s mind like a foreboding omen.

 

* * *

 

When Hux stepped outside the sun had budged only slightly to the west. Hux glared in it’s direction and then to the landscape. He could begrudgingly admit that it was rather impressive; when he swiveled on his feet to the south, a great behemoth of a mountain stood before him, jagged on one end and careening smoothly to the other. Above it was a plume of smoke stretching high into the heavens.

“Enjoying the view?”

Hux flinched. Behind him was the man from the bar.

“Enjoying isn’t the word I’d use.”

The man chuckled at the stubborn lie and stared with Hux at the mountain before them. After a moment, he raised his hand and pointed at it.

“That’s San Jacinto.”

“Is everything out this way named for the saints?” Hux complained. “San Gabriel, San Bernardino, San Jacinto- you’d think I was making a pilgrimage.”

“Nearly. It just all depends on the day the Spanish happened to stop by. Just check the saint whose feast day it’s on- easy enough to name things on that system.”

Hux stared at the mountain, it’s dramatic shape cutting drastically across the bright blue skies, the tower of smoke foreboding behind it.

“Saint Jacinto must have been a large man” he said.

The man took a step forward, his shadow casting on Hux and shielding him from the sun. “Hyacinth, actually, and he was a boy. He refused to participate in sacrifices to the Roman Gods. He was locked up and starved. When offered meat that had been sacrificed, he refused it and died.”

“That’s rather grim,” Hux said.

“You don’t get canonized for dying peacefully in your sleep,” he replied.

“An awfully big monument for a little boy,” Hux said. “He didn’t do anything. He just starved.”

“But he starved in faith,” The man said. He looked down to Hux, his eyes dark despite the glaring sun. It made Hux want to step back, to put some space between them. Instead, he stood his ground.

“I thought you weren’t the moralizing and religious type.”

Ben narrowed his eyes, stepped a little closer to Hux. The air seemed to cool a degree in his shadow. “I’m not.”

Hux tilted his head, smiled in a way his step mother had always called _devilish._ “Then how do you know so much about the saints?”

“I know lots of things. I’m old.”

“Hardly,” Hux said. He let his eyes roam down the man’s body- his broad shoulders that melted into thick arms, collar bones cut sharp atop his large chest- Hux could only imagine the rest. “You can’t be older than me. I bet you weren’t an altar boy too long ago.”

Hux thought he could see a bit of anger in the man, but he held himself back and through a sour face asked, “Did you manage to find a room?”

“No, of course not. Seems like my luck ran out the moment the train broke down.”

And just as quick as the anger came, it was gone, replaced by a wolfish grin. “Lucky for you that I have a room already.”

The opportunity was appealing but Hux’s instincts reminded him that nothing was free. “I don’t know. What’s it going to cost me?”

The man shrugged “I’ve no need for money.”

“Everyone needs money. And if not money, they need the things it can buy. Food, water, comfort.”

“I’ve no need for those either,” the man replied.

This unsettled Hux further. He tried to step back, but the air around the man was too cool and refreshing to leave. “Then what do you get out of it?”

The answer seemed readied, but the man couldn’t quite work through it, his tongue shifting in his mouth and teeth biting down on it uncertainly. Finally, he managed to say through an irritated face, “Just a companion for the evening.”

Hux blinked at him. Surely he didn’t mean what Hux thought he did, or at least, was a little more aware than to just say it in the light of day.”A companion?”

“You’re good conversation.”

Hux swallowed down his questions and the warnings crawling up his throat. “I don’t even know your name, and I don’t make a habit of sleeping near strangers.”

The man smiled, his canines so pronounced the tips rested on his fat bottom lips. When he said, “You can call me Ben,” it sounded nothing like the truth, but it was the best Hux had.

 

* * *

 

  
“We’ll be re-boarding 8 AM tomorrow.” Some part needed to be freighted in from up north and was on its way. That’s all that was offered up to Hux when he angrily inquired. So he followed Ben through the crowded streets near the railway until they became a little less congested. The shops were grimy with dust and their windows dark, their wares sun bleached in their displays. Hux thought back to his father’s postcards resentfully.

The town itself was rather quiet once they got away from the bustle of the train station. Most residents were spread apart from each other, far enough away to provide privacy but still give the illusion of community. At the end of the dirt road was a patch of dilapidated farm land that appeared long abandoned.

“Who lives here?” Hux asked.

“A friend.”

Hux wanted to ask more, but the sun was bearing down on him and burning his neck. When Ben reached the door, it opened for him with ease.

The inside was a little cleaner, the bare floorboards covered with an old Persian rug that looked well cared for, furniture spread welcomely around the radio. There weren’t any photographs on the wall, but homey needle work cheerfully greeted them. It was a picturesque family scene waiting to be filled.

Hux scuffed his dusty boots on the carpet.

“When is your friend coming home?” Hux asked.

Ben walked towards the center of the space, filling up the room, sucking the light from it with his huge frame. “In a day or so.”

“Too bad you missed them,” Hux said.

Ben turned, rolled his head around his neck, cracking every bone along the way. He looked at Hux with narrowed eyes, balancing his weight on the front of his feet like he was about to bolt. Hux dropped his bags at the door.

“I think I’ll lay down,” Hux ventured

Ben shook his head. “That wasn’t the plan.”

“And what was your plan?”

Ben’s fingers curled into fists and the tendons in his neck strained. His plush lips seemed to be gagged around whatever words were stuck in his mouth. Hux felt the intent in the air, the suspense before an attack, and Hux wasn’t above provoking it.

“You did have a plan, didn’t you?” Hux stepped in a little closer, crossing into the wide berth Ben had given him. Ben’s eyes narrowed on him, the brown of his irises bleeding into his dark, wide pupils. “You weren’t just going to break into whoever’s house this was without some sort of plan?”

Ben smiled in an unnatural manner, lips closed and stretched across his face like it was supposed to be a smirk. “I said they were friends, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

Hux stepped closer, enthralled by the odd set of Ben’s face, his angry eyes and nervous brow, trembling mouth closed tight above sharp teeth. He was a contradiction of expressions, both soft set and brutal.

“I had wanted- wanted something very _specific_ ,” Ben stuttered out, “but the flesh is weak.”

It was such an old turn of phrase it made Hux stop in his tracks, disturbed by Ben’s tone. Things were starting to feel dangerous. “Then I should leave.”

“No!” Ben barked. Quick as a flash, he was in Hux’s space and grabbing his wrist. “That wasn’t the plan!”

Hux tried to wrest his wrist away, shivering from the cold dread of the air. “I don’t care what your plan is, I’m not about to be killed in the middle of a fucking shack.”

And for a moment, it really did look like Ben was about to end Hux right there on the damned Persian rug, among the happy stitchwork and empty familial chairs. His eyes had the look of it, blown wide with adrenaline and drinking Hux in. His hand came up and grabbed Hux’s hair and balled it into a fist. “I can’t kill you,” Ben cursed before planting his lips upon Hux’s.

Hux had been expecting strangulation, but the kiss did much of the same work, stealing the breath from Hux and leaving him gasping. Ben drew Hux in closer, twisting his wrist and digging his nails into Hux’s scalp, leaving no space between their bodies untouched. When Hux managed to break for air, he thought he’d scream for help, but all that came out was a pitiful moan as Ben licked down his neck.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Hux cursed. Ben growled like a broken beast and wrenched Hux’s neck back, biting on the soft flesh right above his pulse point.

“Foul mouthed,” Ben said between bites, “bitter and envious. So much envy it fills up a room.”

“I didn’t come for an analysis,” Hux growled, using the leverage from the awkward cant of Ben’s body to push him back. Ben fell back on the rug, and Hux used the momentum to climb into Ben’s lap and pin his wrists to the floor. When he sat himself back against Ben’s knees, he could feel him hot and hard below him. Ben groaned at the pressure, pushed his hips up to meet him in a mindless motion.

“Hell,” Ben cried, then bit on his lip. Hux ground himself back in easy undulations, fascinated by the way Ben seemed to crack below him. The power balance had shifted in Hux’s favor, and he was going to take advantage of it.

Hux started unbuttoning Ben’s worn shirt, stiff from the desert heat and fanning dirt into the midday light. Ben struggled beneath him, grinding up into Hux’s ass with a bewildered face. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you naked,” Hux huffed. Once the shirt was open, it revealed what Hux had only gotten a glimmer of in the bar- a long torso and broad chest, milky pale skin blotched with deep bruises and pulled taught over full pecs and bands of muscle. Unable to resist, Hux leaned in and bit at Ben’s neck, sucking on the skin between his teeth and leaving a hot, wet mark in his wake.

Ben whined and panted in a way that reminded Hux of the previous virgins he bedded. He didn’t have any concern for the noises he made, the animal grunts and whimpers. When Hux removed his own outer layers and stripped away his undershirt, Ben’s mouth went slack.

“What is it?” Hux asked cruelly, putting his fingers in Ben’s mouth and atop his tongue, pulling down to see how wide he could get.

For a moment, the mean edge Ben had melted away to something a little brighter and more sincere. When Ben stuttered out “You look so beautiful,” it sounded like the first real thing to have come out of the man’s mouth.

Repulsed, Hux slapped him. “Don’t you know what you’re doing?” Hux asked meanly.

The shock rippled across Ben’s face until the naked admiration had retreated back and the angry mask returned. Ben grabbed Hux by the hips and rolled them, knocking Hux onto his back and winding him. When he glared up at Ben it was through licks of flames and black spots in his eyes.

“Insolent,” Ben cursed before biting at Hux's lips. It was his turn to moan and writhe, hands grappling at all the cold, hard angles of him. Ben raked his fingers down Hux's lither form until he found the top of his pants. He thumbed at it for a moment until Hux was snarling obscenities beneath him and mercifully slipped his hand below the waist band.

“I'll show you,” Ben promised as Hux's vision went red.

* * *

  
Hux was sitting crossed-legged on the worn wooden porch staring across fields of corn. It was unseasonably dry, the breeze drying the sweat on his neck. He hated this time of day, when the sun was just rising and the house was empty.

“Darling, what are you doing there?” a voice called behind him. He turned and peered into the dark house. His mother was standing just beyond the darkened threshold, her white nightgown glowing in the early morning light. Her hair was down, tumbling past her shoulders and nearing her waist- she must have been undoing her night braids before pinning them in her usual buns.

“I’m waiting for Papa,” Hux said stubbornly.

His mother rolled her eyes for his benefit. “You know your Papa, his errands don’t run on any sort of schedule.” She walked out to him and scooped him up, balancing him on her hip. He was too big for it, but his mother was stronger than anyone Hux knew and she carried him with ease. “Let’s go make him breakfast for whenever he stumbles in.”

When they reached the kitchen, it was glowing a soft blue. His uncle was already seated at the head of the table, turning the pages of an old Bible. “Good morning, Benjamin.”

Hux furrowed his eyes at him. “That’s not my name!”  

His uncle rolled his eyes. “I’m certainly not calling you by whatever made up name you’ve picked for yourself today.”

“You’re in a mood,” his mother said. “You could brew your own coffee, you know.”

“I don’t drink coffee until I’ve read the Psalms.”

His mother hummed an irritated note while she scooped coffee into the percolator. “Sweetheart, want to help me make breakfast?”

Hux nodded eagerly. Before he knew it, he was standing on a chair, mixing the pancake batter while his mother heated a skillet with the bacon grease she kept on the windowsill. On the back burner the percolator was popping, getting blacker with each pass. Just as she was ladling out the pale batter, the back door clattered open.

“Papa!” Hux yelped in delight, already scrambling for the door.

His papa stood tall and proud, his haughty smile mellowed by his soft eyes. When he saw Hux, he opened his arms wide so Hux could scramble up into them. When he held Hux, it was tightly, spinning him in the air and chuckling. The sensation of it was strong and foreign, and then all together wrong. Hux fell from it, thrashing against what didn't belong to him-

Hux awoke, startled into consciousness. When his eyes shot open, he was still on the living room floor of the home. The cross stitch looked foreboding in the dying firelight. Hux didn’t remember it ever being lit, couldn’t imagine the need in such oppressive heat as the desert’s. When he rolled onto his side the carpet below him was damp with his sweat. Next to him laid Ben, eyes shut and brows furrowed, as if caught in a bad dream. Hux was never one to linger after sex, preferring to leave before the other party could tempt him further, but his dream stayed like a bad taste. When he reached out to Ben, his skin was ice cold, colder than it should have been in the stuffy room. Ben didn’t even stir beneath Hux’s slick palms.

The clarity afforded after sex and rest made Hux repulsed by Ben. There was something not right about the chill of his skin or the laborious way words pooled in his mouth before he spat them out. At the place where spine met skull, Hux could feel a warning, a biological instruction based on the experience of those who came before; _leave now, while you can._

Hux dressed quietly and quickly while Ben snuffled on the floor. He felt a mess and at odds with the anxiety in him. Hoping to regain some control over himself, he walked towards the kitchen to wash his hands and slick back his hair. It was dark, moonlight illuminating white tile and bare flooring and leaving the rest of the room inky black. When Hux walked to the sink, reaching out to the faucet, a glance downwards revealed a sink nearly as bare as the rest of the home, except for a single knife, it’s serrated edges coated in something dark.

Hux didn’t dare look back, not towards the living room glowing red, nor to the hallway that certainly led to the bedrooms of the former occupants. He simply stepped away from the sink and walked out the backdoor.

* * *

  
By the time the sun was beginning to peak over the eastern horizon, Hux had talked himself out of his panic. He’d sat in front of the train station on the benches, watching the stars slowly pass through the sky for hours. He rationalized it to himself, putting the blame on this unsettling place. His home back east had been well worn and established, brick pavement tread in the same way for hundreds of years. He wasn’t used to the desert, the easy demeanor of the residents and the heat. It would make any man feel out of element.

There was also the matter of what was at the end of the line- his father's possessions and casket awaiting his assessment- that twisted Hux's stomachs into knots. Hux thought of the man from his dreams with envy, disdainful of all the ways Brendol Hux fell short in comparison. By the time the sky was going from black to indigo, he'd returned to his sour disposition.

Soon enough the platform filled up, grumpy passengers eager to reboard and get on with their journey. Young children dotted among them, local kids selling pastries and tins of hot coffee, hollering the morning headlines. Anything to make a dime in hard times.

“Murder out West!” cried one of them in an accent Hux had heard passing through the planes. “Family slain in their home!”

Hux thought of the bread knife coated in blood.

“I'll take one,” he said, fishing out a dime. His heart raced as he sifted through the pages, trying to find the full article.

_Topeka, Kansas-_

Hux blew out the breath he'd been holding.

_A family has been found slain on their farm early Sunday morning. After the senior pastor of a local Presbyterian congregation had not shown up for morning services, parishioners were dispatched to the farm to find him. The scene they discovered was gruesome: the Pastor and two other adults dead and strewn throughout their homes. The victims-_

Hux balled up the paper, bile on the back of his tongue overpowering his initial relief. He threw the paper on the ground, let it be blown away with the morning winds.

Blessedly, before Hux could dwell on it further, the train attendants stepped out to the platform, announcing ‘Now Boarding!’ Hux eagerly climbed into the cabin, leaving the balled up paper and dirty town behind him. Relief washed over him the moment he sat down. He stared out the car window towards the looming mountain of San Jacinto, its billowing smoke being pushed out west by the persistent winds. He let himself begin to drift, comfortable finally after a long night of distress. It would be ok. He'd see his father's casket and watch that chapter of his life finally close. He'd be free, and Hux dreamed of the things he could finally do without Brendol's dead weight around his neck.

Just as the train was jolting forward, wheels finally turning, a hand settled heavy on Hux's shoulder, startling him from his reveries. It was Ben, clean pressed and smiling, looking awfully pleased with himself.

“Is this seat taken?”

Hux swallowed hard. “Yes, the passenger is just sorting out his ticket in the other cabin right now.”

Ben smiled indulgently and edging on outright pleased, clearly enjoying Hux's lie. “Well, I'll just sit beside you until he comes back.”

Ben's large body barely fit on the bench, spilling everywhere as he sat, arm sprawled behind Hux, crowding him.

“I was so worried when I didn't see you this morning,” Ben spoke lowly into Hux's ear. The shiver that ran through Hux's body was a mix of fear and pleasure.

“I prefer to slip away after such nights,” Hux mumbled. It was mostly true, irrational and overpowering fear aside.

Ben chuckled, deep and throaty, his delight shaking into Hux. “Lucky for me we were headed out the same way.”

Hux thought about the knife in the kitchen and shivered. “Yes, lucky you.”

* * *

 

At first there wasn’t much besides precarious hills and sleepy farmland, dubiously irrigated despite the arid heat. Everything was covered in a haze, from the dust being upended by plows and the smoke from the mountain fire. Hux was unimpressed.

Then, they finally broke from the hills and into the basin.

These mountains were taller, their silhouettes more striking than the ones back in the desert. There were no gentle hills unfurling at their base but rather giant foothills that dropped sharply to flat land. The whole place was boxed in by mountains to the north and east, trapping in the heat and dust without the relief of a breeze. Everything was brown, covered in sage and chaparral for miles; the places it had been cleared out were green, trees from anywhere but there, large oaks, pines, magnolias, willows, and palms, all of them somehow thriving. Orchards and orange groves peppered the spaces between towns, their fruit hanging heavy for anyone to reach up and pick.

The city life itself was less enchanting. The streets were mostly dust, and where they happened to be paved, they were cracked from the ever shifting land. Hux had hurried out of the train, eager to get away from Ben's unnerving silence and the heavy arm he'd kept draped around Hux like a vice. When he'd managed to take a look, streets filled with motorcars and horses, trash and excrement lining it in equal parts, Hux felt appalled.

“Filthy,” he cursed.

“I've seen worse places.” Hux cringed and turned to see that Ben had little trouble following him off the train.

“I'm sure you have,” Hux said. Ben cocked a brow at him. Hux glanced down at his watch to find he had a half hour to find his way to the mortuary and conclude this whole awful errand.

“Well Ben, it's been nice meeting you, but I'm afraid our time has come to a close.”

Ben shrugged his goodbyes off. “I was thinking I'd maybe stick around, see how your ‘family errand’ goes.”

Anger and frustration unseated the fear that had been sitting in Hux's stomach the whole ride over. “No, that's not how this works. You're going to fuck off and leave me alone. You're going to go your way and harass some other poor idiot that ends up beneath you.”

Ben didn't have the decency to look chagrined, just leveled Hux with his dark eyes. When he said, “We'll see,” it was both a threat and a promise.

Hux nodded knowing that was as much of a concession as he was going to get, before gathering his things and stomping into the heart of the town.

* * *

  
The funeral home was a small wooden building that looked to be from the previous century. Hux lingered outside for a moment, scrutinizing the exterior until his nerves calmed enough for him to step through the doors.

When Hux had fantasized about his father's death, he always imagined himself seated at a large mahogany table, surrounded by his extended family like vultures around a carcass. But Brendol had lost the mahogany table, and the rest of the family with it. Instead, Hux found himself in a plain room with indifferent staff sorting through papers.

“You're the next of kin, yes?”

“Yes. I'm his son,” Hux said. It didn't feel right coming out of his mouth, and the mortician assistant paused to level him a skeptical stare.

“No wife surviving him?”

Hux thought back to his hateful step-mother, withering away in the dark recesses of New England. “No.”

The assistant shrugged off the answer, either believing it or not caring enough to make a fuss about it.

“He didn't have much in personal effects. This box was brought over by a neighbor a few days after his passing. We didn't find a will inside. Since no one else is claiming him, it's yours to do with as you wish.”

Hux took the box in hand, the wood worn smooth from time. The contents shifted in the muted manner of loose papers. When he opened the top, the colorful produce labels and wine stained corks stamped with Spanish names sat atop post-cards and marked maps. Hux swallowed down the heavy mix of disappointment and bile.

The wake was unremarkable and, to no one's surprise, almost empty. Just the plain casket shut and shoved up against the wall. There was not much in terms of food, some fruits and tepid tea out on the table. A few people lingered and mumbled to each other; none of them were people Hux knew and their sunburned skin and freckled faces were enough to tell him they were locals.

His father had at one point a living will that specified a grand funeral with a mahogany casket and a place of honor at the family plot back home. But that had been before the crash, before Brendol Hux had lost everything on bad investments and dumped the last few pennies he had on a train ticket out West. He'd left all his old friends, his associates and family behind and disappeared into the dust. When Hux had been wired about his father's death, he didn't mention any of the requests in the will back home and had asked for the simplest of arrangements.

There hadn't been any service, and Hux thought back spitefully to his dream before, of the family that wasn't his. Faith seemed entwined in their daily lives, and lived by the way they loved each other. Brendol had only attended for appearances. Any words spoken by a preacher over his body would be hollow.

Still, something needed to be said, and Hux had a sparse room of strangers to listen to him. He cleared his throat and stepped in front of Brendol's casket.

“Thank you all for coming today. You all knew my father in some capacity during his final years, which means you knew him better than me.”

The room was uncomfortably silent. Hux forged ahead.

“My father used to be a great man. Military honors and a good family name. He often told me I was lucky he'd given me his name.”

A few eyes stared at him in confusion and Hux felt the fires of resentment stoke in him. “I'm his son, but I'm not his wife's child. Back East they called that a ‘bastard’, and he reminded me of that frequently. But I was his only offspring and he had to make do with what he had. ‘You're lucky to have my name, and all you'll get from it'.”

Hux turned around to glare at the plain pine box behind him. “Except of course, there wasn't much to give. Brendol had been as greedy as he was selfish, and had thrown his money into stocks that seemed too good to be true. And it turns out they were. He lost everything- the ancestral home, the money, his family and everything else. And instead of facing it like a man, he ran out here. I don't even know what he did these last six years.”

Hux swiveled to the room. He couldn't see anyone, really, just red spots of anger. “I hope whatever he did, that he's satisfied with himself.”

Hux walked out then, away from the strangers and his father's body. They could intern him how they wanted. His father never wanted him in life, and he wasn't going to get him in death.

Out on the street, Hux glared into the midday haze, refracting off the dirt and grime in the air and turning everything bone white. He should have gotten right back on a train, back to the damp and cold of the East. But his limbs were buzzing with anger and the thought of sitting in his rage for days didn't sound appealing. Hux breathed heavy, smoke from the mountain fire and the cloying sweetness of citrus filling his lungs. The bustling crowd of pedestrians and cars eventually parted and there at the end beneath a tall magnolia was Ben, smiling at him.

Hux stormed up to him. “I thought I told you to scram.”

Ben smile widened. “You did.”

“But you just go where you want.”

“I do.”

Hux wanted to burn his father's casket, wanted to howl from the years of resentment, the disappointment that had rotted and gone necrotic in him. Instead, he raked his eyes over Ben's body, thinking of every awful thing he wanted to do to each part of him, before swiveling on his heel and walking away. He didn't need to look back to know Ben was following.

 

* * *

 

The hotel room was simple, with a single bed that would barely fit the both of them. The walls were thin as parchment, and Hux could hear the various inhabitants, some snoring from midday naps and others pattering around, shuffling their feet against the wood floors. The room was a facade of privacy, and Ben's presence felt like a kind of exposure.

Ben was still covered in bruises from the night before. In the daylight, they looked like the casualties of a fight. Hux considered the pale patches, deciding Ben could do with more coloring.

Before his nails could reach out, Ben grabbed his hand midair.

“You're not getting away again,” he said.

Hux grabbed him by the shirt, dragged Ben in. “Is that a promise?”

Ben grinned, foul and angry, and Hux had no doubt that Ben was set on violence this time around. When Ben grabbed his chin he dug his ragged nails in deep. Hux snarled at the pain as Ben forced their mouths together.

The previous day's fumbling had turned into some kind of finesse. Hux's own technique was echoed back to him in the bite of Ben's teeth on his lip, the demanding push of his tongue. Hux met Ben's efforts eagerly, clawing at Ben's body til red bloomed beneath his nails.

“Damn,” Ben cursed. He sounded shaken, his violent energy diffusing beneath Hux's hands.

Ben walked them back to the bed, seated himself while pulling Hux into his lap. He grabbed Hux's hips, his arms shaking with crushing power but his fingers barely making purchase. When Hux moved, twisting his hips, Ben craned his head back, eyes squeezed shut against the feeling of it.

Any moan wishing to escape seized up in Ben’s throat, choking him as Hux’s deft fingers divested him of his clothing. He seemed bound, restricted even when he was finally naked below Hux, his large body displayed and writhing. The previous night had been juvenile fumblings, but now Hux had the time and will to be thorough. Hux pressed his fingers into the blistering skin on Ben’s hip bones, pulling out a pained, gurgling noise from the man.

“So desperate,” Hux said in disbelief.

“Hux,” he moaned.

Hux dragged his fingers, retreading the same welts he’d left the day before until they bloomed a bright red atop the purpling. He clawed his way down Ben’s hips, over his strong thighs, skimming behind when Ben gasped in pain and spread his legs further. He lightened his touch, the barest of contact between nail and skin at the most vulnerable place until Ben was howling below him.

“You’re all talk,” Hux said, scolding in the same manner his father had been. “But here you are, on your back.”

Ben seemed to regain himself, anger bursting across his face, nostrils flaring, but before he could leverage Hux off him and fight back, Hux pressed the flat of his thumb against his hole.

“Yeah,” Hux breathed out, “not so tough.”

Hux applied the barest of pressure, and Ben seemed to unravel beneath him. The shaking tension relaxed, his strained jaw going slack from the sensation. “Hux, oh God. Please.”

Hux was too distracted by the flutter of skin against his thumb to hear the shift in Ben’s tone. “I’m barely doing anything, and you’re already begging.” Hux pressed a little more firmly, urging the skin to relax beneath his touch.

Ben’s moans were loud, rumbling low in his chest and releasing in a high keen. “Hux, listen to me-”

Being mindful and remembering his own initial attempts, Hux eased in the tip of his finger, the muscles relaxing in spite of his dry touch. “I’m listening,” Hux said, his voice condescending as Ben thrashed.

“No, no Hux, listen,” Ben panted out, his hips rolling to meet the intrusion, “you’ve got to go.”

Hux froze. “What?”

Ben’s body went rigid, shutting itself against Hux’s thumb. The raw, sweet quality of his voice returned to it’s low rumbling. “Keep going,” he mumbled.

Hux felt displaced, his arousal at odds with the chill in his spine. He drew his fingers away from Ben.

“What are you doing?” Ben asked.

Hux withdrew from Ben’s body and across the room. “Grabbing something to make this easier.”

Hux walked on shaking legs towards his bag, fished through it while Ben watched him. Inside was a small tin of cream. When he turned around, Ben’s legs were spread out, his face expectant as he palmed at himself. It was nearly tempting enough to distract him from his unease.

A voice in his mind urged him on. _Take what you want,_ it said in a low murmur. Hux willed his fears out of himself as he came back to Ben, sank them into Ben's body with his slick fingers, and chose to ignore the signs. 

 

* * *

 

 

In this dream, Hux was older. His gangly limbs from youth had filled out, broadened and defined. Hux stared down at his palms, pale and free from the stains of age.  If Hux had to guess, he must have been years younger and full of potential. But this was a dream, and Hux intrinsically knew that he was Ben, staring down at his hands, trying to will himself away.

Hux looked up, blew away an errant lock of hair and scanned the horizon. It was dusty, little devils spinning on the horizon before blowing off west. Hux had heard Uncle Luke and his mother talking in hushed, worried voices about droughts and dust storms out towards Wichita and it's surrounding counties. Inside the house, his mother and father screamed about rum running.

"You need to give it up," Leia yelled. Hux cringed, remembering the times Ben had been on the receiving end of one of her verbal lashings. "Liquor is legal now, and blue county or not, no one is going to buy you and your buddies' hooch over something decent."

"I keep telling you, Leia, liquor is only part of it. We deliver all kinds of stuff," Han said. Hux grimaced; Han was never as good at smooth talking as he thought himself to be. It rarely worked on the cops who had busted Han and Chewie, and it certainly never worked on Leia.

"And I'm sure it's just as illegal," Leia snapped back. "You need to do real work. We need help on the farm."

"We have help!" Han yelled. "What are all those field hands for?"

"We can't afford field hands! I let them go weeks ago, which you would _know_ if you weren't chasing cheap thrills."

There was a banging inside, something thrown to the ground and shattering. Hux jolted, surprised when he realized it was Leia who had thrown the object. Her fury was righteous, the Old Testament kind that Uncle Luke droned on about during his sermons.

"We have a mortgage to pay," she bellowed out. "And maybe you weren't paying attention the last few years while you were running hooch and playing gangster but we are in the middle of a depression."

"We'll make it, Leia," Han pleaded.

"If the banks don't get us first, then maybe the dust storms will!" Leia continued. "All the farms west of Wichita are gone, blown to dust. And when that happens to us-"

"If it happens-"

" _When,_ " Leia said, prophetic, "we will have nothing, and it will all be because of you."

Hux opened his eyes to the water stained wallpaper of the hotel. When he glanced beside him, Ben was awake and staring. 

"What were you dreaming about?" he asked. 

Hux rubbed at his eyes, hiding them from Ben's gaze. "Dust storms."

"Hmm," Ben hummed. He splayed a large hand on Hux's chest. 

"That's all the Midwest is anymore," Hux said, dropping his hands. "Though this place doesn't seem any better."

They laid in silence, the dream fading from Hux. 

"What's in the box?" Ben asked. 

Hux glanced towards the foot of the door, where the shoebox had been discarded in his urgency. 

"Useless junk that my father had left behind," Hux said. 

Ben glanced at the box and then down to Hux. "Like what?"

"Postcards, pamphlets, advertisements from the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce," Hux listed. "proof of my father's delusions hoarded in a size ten shoe box."

"What are you going to do with it?" Ben asked. 

"Throw it out. Maybe burn it."

Ben made a face at that. "Burning is too good for it. Better to let the things that hold us back rot in the open."

As Ben leaned down to kiss him, his teeth sinking into Hux's lips, Hux thought about Han and Leia, and hoped Ben had left them in better shape than that.

 

* * *

  
  
The days passed in a blur of sex and dreams. When Hux wasn't fucking Ben, swallowing him down and grinding himself against Ben's wicked tongue, he was dreaming of Ben's family. In the respites between unconsciousness and sex, Hux chalked it up to being with the man near constantly and not knowing a thing about him beyond the feel of his skin and the sound of his voice when he came. Hux's father had always scorned him for an overactive imagination, so Hux let himself indulge it, conjuring up memories of a sweet faced Ben between sessions of intense fucking. Hux dreamed of Leia and Luke working in the fields, of Han coming home with small toys, baseballs and a mitt from a particularly lucrative rum run, the way the roads seemed to go on forever, lined with corn and sogrhum swaying in the prairie winds. When he awoke he would climb atop of Ben, rut until exhaustion before dreaming again. They ordered in food when hunger struck, and if the hotel staff noticed that they never left the room, they didn't say anything, never bothering to come and change the abused sheets.

On the 7th day, Hux emerged from the confines of the room and strolled down the street in search of food. Stalls were popped up along the streets, local farmers selling oranges the size of Hux's palm, fragrant dates and figs so ripe they were nearly bursting open. Fried doughs were being served in paper bags and coated in cinnamon sugar, colorful conchas in shades of pastel sitting in piles for street children to ogle. Hux picked things out, grapes and cheeses, greasy fried sweets and sausages. He couldn't remember the last time he ate, and he wanted a taste of everything.

Towards the end of the stalls was a man with a cart selling wine mulled with bruised and discarded fruits, glistening like wet jewels. Hux glanced to sun shining bright in the sky, not at a decent enough position to justify grabbing two cups. But the way the wine had stained the walls of the ceramic bowl reminded him of the bruised and bitten places on Ben's skin, and much like the whole bizarre tryst, Hux found himself ignoring propriety and indulging.

"Two cups worth, please," Hux asked. The man ladled the liquid into empty milk bottles, taking care to add a generous helping of macerated fruit to the top. Just as Hux was exchanging pennies with the merchant, a voice asked him, "Excuse me sir?"

The voice sent a rush of dejavu over Hux, leaving him cold with guilt and panic. When he turned to the woman, shock ran through him. He knew her face, if only from memories. Except as Hux scrabbled to place her in the dreams, he realized she hadn't been there, somehow blurred out from each scene, shoved to the edges of every memory and out of Hux's peripheral. But as he stared at her soft set eyes and chestnut hair, the absent places knit themselves together until he knew her like an old friend.

"Can I help you?" Hux snapped; panic always made him short.

The woman didn't seem taken aback by this. _And why would she,_ Hux thought to himself, _she grew up dealing with Ben's temper._

"I'm in town searching for a relative," she continued, unphased and urgent in her concern. She handed Hux a photo, sepia and browning from water damage. On the page was Han and Leia, looking older from the years but smiling through it, each with a hand on Ben. He couldn't have been much younger, a year or so, but the difference was stark. His eyes were clearer, shining bright in the light of camera, iris and pupil distinguishable in his almond eyes. His smile was genuine, pulling crooked to the right of his face.

Hux wasn't sure how much time passed as Ben's cousin watched him. When he came to, he had to swallow down his surprise to answer her. "I haven't," he said.

It may not have been the truth, but it was close enough. The man that had been following him was not the Ben of his dreams, nor the one in the photograph.

"I see," she replied, like she really did. "If you do end up seeing him, I am staying at the Aztec Hotel over in Monrovia. Ask for Rey in room 17."

She gave Hux one last look and then walked down the street.

* * *

 

When he got back to the room, Ben wasn't dressed. He laid sprawled on the bed in a patch of sunlight.

"Put some clothes on," Hux grumbled.

"I'm comfortable," Ben said. His eyes fanned closed, long lashes casting shadows on his cheek bones.

Hux looked at his body a little better, past the immediate temptation of his muscles and cock, the plush lips and strong brow. It was his skin that interested Hux, a patchwork of bruises and cuts in gradients of yellow to deep purple. Some of them matched Hux's hand and mouth, and he had mirrored marks himself where Ben had grabbed him, bit him, held him hard as they fucked. Some of them were older, clearly from some kind of altercation. Hux imagined smaller hands clawing at Ben, leaving welts in a desperate attempt.

"You're like a reptile," Hux said. He came to sit beside Ben in the small patch of bed beside his hips.

"Hmmm?"

"Cold blooded," Hux mumbled. He pressed a palm to one of Ben's pectorals, pushing past the immediate warmth of the sun and to the cooler muscle beneath. "Ice cold, in fact. I've never met someone so thoroughly chilled."

Some of Ben's bruises were nearly black, and when Hux touched them, they stung from their chill. Hux withdrew his fingers in a gasp, pressing them to his lips to warm them. When he looked to Ben, his eyes were narrowed in on Hux's hand.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

Hux thought of Han and Leia in the photo Ben's cousin had shown him. How Ben had his father's eyes, dark and eager.  But the Ben lying beneath Hux's hand looked like a stranger from the one that had been smiling up at him from the photograph. The haze of the week was beginning to melt away, withdrawing from Hux the same way the coastal fog did under the all-seeing sun.

"Where did you say you were from?" Hux asked.

"Back East," Ben replied.

"Where back East?" Hux asked. "I'm from Boston," Hux added quickly, trying to ward off the suspicion creeping onto Ben's face.

"I came from a farm," Ben replied.

Hux thought of their first meeting. He'd been blinded by anger at his father and a vengeful lust for the stranger that he hadn't pondered the strange statements that had tumbled from Ben. " _I've been riding the railways for sometime."_ Hux wondered if that had been for a few days, the amount of time it would take a man to flee a small farm in Topeka, or if it'd been longer than that. Hux wondered if he'd always been riding the train as the large attractive man with frost-bit skin and a menagerie of bruises, or if he'd ridden it as someone else.

"A farm," Hux said. "Like the kind you'd find in Kansas?"

Ben blinked with all the qualities of a snake. "Something like that, yes."

Hux nodded to himself before climbing atop of Ben's lap. The sudden change in position was enough to jolt Ben from his mounting suspicion. With a clear head, Hux decided on a change of strategy.

“Bet you were a good farm boy,” Hux said, aiming for cloying but sounding shaken.

Ben's hands found their place of Hux's hips, retreading the same bruises from days past. When Hux pressed a sweet kiss to the corner of his lips, Ben dug in.

“Nothing good about me,” Ben moaned.

Hux brushed Ben's hair back from his eyes; the black was starting to retreat, the iris peaking out. Hux hadn't seen it before, a deep brown like molasses and prairie grass.

“Sweet thing,” Hux cooed. The black retreated faster, all that was left was a small disk of pupil.

“Hux,” Ben sighed. Hux imagined he could hear two tones there, the low one that first greeted Hux in the smoky bar, and a higher, softer one, broken from disuse.

Hux kissed him again, once on the corner of his mouth, then on his jaw, another on his chin, and finally on his lips. Ben’s breaths got higher, wet and ragged.

“Hux, oh God, Hux,” he begged.

Against his cheek with a hand in Ben’s hair, Hux whispered, saccharine in his trepidation, “My sweet Ben.”

It was a cheap ploy, one Hux had used on willowy, desperate types who needed some convincing to overcome their propriety, but the blow landed. All the breath rushed out of Ben, his cheeks warm and red, eyes nearly brown.

“Hux, you need to go,” Ben said. 

Hux grabbed onto Ben, let his hand cradle the back of his head. His words were worried and harsh when he asked, “Ben, what is wrong with you?”

Ben turned his face into Hux’s palm, rubbing his cheek against it. “He wants to hurt you Hux.”

“Who wants to hurt me?” Hux asked.

“The _thing_ inside me. I’m sorry Hux,” Ben sobbed. He was starting to shake, shivering in Hux’s embrace.

“Ben?” Hux said, gripping him tight.

“He’s going to kill you,” Ben said through gritted teeth. He was shaking furiously, rocking beneath Hux. “I don’t know how much longer I can stop him.

“What do I do?” Hux yelled. “Ben, how do we get him out?”

“Heat,” Ben gargled out. Then his eyes rolled back so far only whites and burst capillaries were visible, before passing out. Blood ran down Ben’s mouth, lip burst open from the biting down in his convulsions.

Hux hesitated, wanting to wipe the blood away and rush him to a doctor, fix all his bruises and scars. Instead, he ran for the door.  

* * *

   
Hux walked down Route 66, racing the sun as it crossed the sky. Signs and maps had pointed vaguely west towards Monrovia, and Hux followed them, hoping to put distance between himself and Ben's unconscious body. Time passed and the sun had long overtaken Hux's pace when he finally crossed a peculiar building, styled after a Midwesterner's impression of ancient Aztec art. It was hideous and out of place, a strange hybrid of the previous decade's architecture and a gross caricature of a people who never even resided in the basin. Despite the ache of his body and the numbness that occupied the places where panic had been, Hux found himself rolling his eyes.

There wasn't an attendant at the front desk, which was all the better for Hux. He walked down the narrow hallways until he reached number 17 in copper plate. He knocked three times.

When Rey opened the door, she didn't look entirely surprised. Her hair was out of her buns, waving down to his shoulders. She wore a simple tunic and an expectant stre.

"I've seen your cousin," Hux told her.

"I never told you he was my cousin," she replied. She stepped aside and let Hux in.

"Well he never mentioned you were his cousin either, but here we are." Hux rubbed at the bruise Ben had left on his arm during his convulsion, the pain throbbing insistently.

"What's your name?"

"Armitage Hux," Hux replied. "But I prefer Hux."

"Ok Hux, I'm Rey."

Hux seated himself atop the hideous bed spread before his legs could give out.

"So where is Ben?" Rey asked.

"I left him unconscious at the hotel."

If Rey was surprised by this, she didn't let on. Hux tried not to let the way she stared at him unnerve him.

"We had an… altercation." Every bruise and scratch on his body felt like a beacon. Hux wondered if Rey could tell apart the finger shaped bruises from the ones the size of Ben's mouth.  "He's got a temper."

Rey exhaled through her nose. "Yeah, he always has."

Hux nodded. "I figured. That's why you're here, right?"

For the first time since he crossed the threshold, Rey's careful mask began to crack. It started with her eyes, shining with anger and sorrow, and fissured down her nose to the quiver of her lips. When she asked, "What do you mean?" her voice wavered over the words.

"Because he killed Han and Leia," Hux said.

"Did he tell you that?" Rey spat out.

Hux shook his head. "No. _He_ didn't tell me."

Rey turned around to compose herself, hiding her tears so Hux couldn't see. "What do you mean?"

Hux thought about the way Ben couldn't speak, like his words were being swallowed back inside him; he thought of the frightening things that came out when he could manage it. He thought of the way Ben's skin felt, cold as death even after hours in the desert sun. The moments of tenderness that would rip from within him, would color his cheeks and wet his eyes when Hux would kiss him, only to retreat as black would engulf Ben's eyes.

"That's not your cousin," Hux said, his voice shaking from the truth of it. "That's not Ben. Something's inside him, some kind of monster."

When Rey turned around her eyes were wide and face pale. When she spoke her words, it was an echo of Uncle Luke's from long ago. "A demon."

 

* * *

 

 

“Ben’s not blood, not exactly,” Rey explained. To Hux’s surprise, Rey had pulled a small flask from out of her bags. It was vile, clearly home brewed, but it worked quick enough to calm their nerves. “Uncle Luke adopted me. My father died in the war, and my mom died of the Spanish Flu two years after.”

Hux offered a weak condolence, but Rey waved it off. “My uncle was friends with my father and took me in. For a few years, it was just the two of us out in Arizona, until he took a call to Kansas. It was the parish local to his sister. We moved in with my Aunt Leia and Uncle Han.”

Hux could remember it, supplied with vague images gleaned from his dreams, manifesting with her words. A small Rey, barely a toddler, her little palm fitting into Ben’s bigger one. It was instant love; Ben had always wanted a sibling.

“I don’t remember much of Uncle Han’s rum running, but Ben does. He was old enough to remember him being gone at all hours, apparently. Aunt Leia was stressed by the nature of the work, and Uncle Luke was disappointed Han couldn’t ‘apply himself’ better. Ben just remembers waiting for his father, and I think growing to resent him for his absence.”

“That’s where the temper comes from,” Hux said.

Rey took a swig from the flask, scowling. “No, I think that’s just a Skywalker trait. My uncle Luke has it, and so does Leia. I’ve got it too.”

“So then why did he do what he did?”

Rey stared down at her hands for a moment. “Ben had been getting restless. Han was at home, no longer smuggling or doing God knows what, and they were grating on each other. Uncle Luke didn’t help much either. Ben went out for walks a lot, to clear his mind and to stay away from the family in general. Sometimes I’d join him.”

Hux felt uneasy; he had glimpses, images from what came next. Just the idea of it made him sick. He couldn't understand how Rey managed to tell the rest.

“Han and him got in a fight. A real screamer, both accusing each other of not doing any real work. My Uncle Luke had tried to intervene, but Ben got so angry he nearly raised a hand against Han. When he realized what he did, he ran off. I wanted to chase him down and calm him, but Aunt Leia held me back.”

Rey’s next words blurred with a vision, some part of the nightmares that he hadn’t been able to remember whenever he awoke.

"He came home and everything was different about him. I don't know how the rest didn't recognize it right away, but I could see it- his eyes were jet black, skin pale and sickly. When Han started barking at him, Ben's voice didn't even sound like him. It was too low."

Rey paused to wipe away the tears welling up in her eyes. Hux could feel the impressions of Ben's- the _real_ Ben's- horror, swallowed down the taste of blood.

"Even when he was attacking them, I knew it wasn't Ben," Rey said, voice shaking from the effort not to cry. "Even as he stabbed Han and, and _Luke_ , I knew it wasn't him doing it."

"What- what about Leia?" Hux choked out.

The mention of the matriarchs name straightened Rey up. She wiped the single tear that had managed to escape and finally looked at Hux .

"He strangled her. I think whatever is in Ben wanted to make it hurt. Leia barely even fought it."

It was too much to bare. "Monster," Hux spat out, devastated. Somehow he _loved_ Leia as Ben did, their strange connection bleeding in all of Ben's memories of Leia's kindness, her affirmations, the very things Hux had been denied his whole life. For Leia to be dead at what felt like _their_ hands- it hurt worse than the death of his own father ever could.

"Ben never would have," Rey said, grief morphing into anger.

"What do we do?" Hux asked, his question a panicked echo of the one he had asked a convulsing Ben.

"I don't know. I can't see a way to get it out without killing Ben too." Rey looked at him accusingly when she added, "You've been with _it_ this whole time. You'd know better."

Hux stared down at the bruises on his wrists, remembered the shocking moments when Ben's cruel mouth would soften and press affection into his skin before hardening again.

"There were times when I think the real Ben would come out. I would say something or touch him a certain way, and I think it overwhelmed the monster enough that Ben could take over for a moment."

Rey cocked an eyebrow at Hux; _suspicions confirmed_ , it said.

"So what, you're going to just be nice enought to him to drive out the demon?" Rey said.

"When you say it that way, it sounds bad," Hux sighed.

"I wish Luke was here," Rey grumbled. "If ever there was a need for a pastor."

Hux thought of pastors and priests, cassocks and angry sermons full of condemnation. Whenever him and Brendol attended, Brendol would wait til they were far enough away from their church before scoffing, "Fire and brimstone, as if they couldn't make up something worse-"

"I've got an idea."

 

* * *

   
When Hux returned to the hotel, he couldn't even get to his room. The place was crowded with bystanders, police coming in an out of the front doors. 

"What happened?" Hux asked one of the onlookers.

"Some guy went crazy," the person replied.

"I heard he attacked a maid who tried to get in to clean the place," another person said.

"Is she ok?" Hux asked.

"She's fine, but shook up."

"I heard the room was torn apart when she got in."

"Did they catch him?" Hux asked. 

"Nope," the first person replied. "Guess he just ran out the building and back into the hills. 

Hux looked to the looming foothills casting long shadows to the east in the setting sun. He spared a thought for the things left in the room, his luggage and wallet, and his father's last possessions, and then took off walking towards the hills.

By the time Hux had left the town behind and into the foothills, the sun had dipped fully below the horizon, leaving the moon large on the eastern line to light his path. Things were truly untamed out here, nature encroaching on society in thick thatches of chaparral and sage. Hux had no direction, climbing up rocks and foot paths worn in by the first peoples. It didn't take long until Hux found a clearing of flat earth, a large oak tree given a wide berth by a circle of sagebrush. When Hux looked to the south, the entire basin stretched out to the sea, it's veins lit in orange dots of sodium lights, it's collective growing bright enough to dampen the stars above.

"Wandering in the wilderness," Ben said behind him. "I've been here before."

Hux looked back at Ben, shrouded in the shadows of the oak, black eyes catching the moonlight. 

Hux looked back down at the city lights, biding his time. "To this particular spot?"

"No, this situation. A young man being tested, pitting his will against mine. I brought him to the top of a mountain and showed him all the things I could offer."

Hux listened to Ben shuffle closer, padding on the dirt barefoot. "I've heard this one before. He told you no."

Hux finally turned around to face Ben. The moonlight shown down on his face, showing the deterioration. It was burning through Ben's body, freezing him from the inside out. A blotch of blackened skin wrapped from Ben's ear down to his top lip. The places that weren't blackened were blistering.

The monster inside Ben grimaced at what must have been a hateful memory. "He's the only one to have refused me. Chalk it up to divinity. Ben wasn't so strong."

Hux turned his body fully to Ben, making sure to keep his eyes on his disfigured face. "Preying on an angry boy is hardly a feat to brag about."

"You're not wrong," the monster admitted, his shrug the undulations of a beast before attack. "Doesn't take much to make people transgress these days."

"So why do it at all?" Hux asked. He had to buy some time, for himself and Ben.

"Call me a tourist, traveling the world enjoying whatever vices I can. It's better than returning below and freezing with the rest." 

"So what's next? You kill me and track down another poor bastard, murder their family?" Hux spat out. "Seems a bit redundant."

"It hasn't gotten old yet," Ben said. He stepped closer to Hux, his gait predatory. "Taking Ben was just as enjoyable as the thousands of times I'd done it before. I found him on the side of a road on a new moon, angry and filled with such hate. I barely had to persuade him." 

Ben closed the space between them, sucking the last of the dying heat from the air. When he grabbed Hux's chin, his fingers were cold as death; when he breathed out, his ragged sigh crystallized in a cloud of vapor.  

"When I saw you in that bar, I could feel Ben's attraction to you immediately. His eye was drawn to your fiery hair. I thought that I would toy with him some, let him indulge in his desires and then have him strangle you and leave you. But his tenacity surprised me, always held me back the moment I tried to strike you."

"Sick fuck," Hux cursed.

"I'm done with him," the monster said. "I've had enough of playing human. The idea of killing you is appealing, but this body can't take it anymore. So you'll have to do."

Ben moved fast, his hands encircling Hux's throat, squeezing tight enough to choke Hux, make his gasp and swallow for air. He brought his mouth against Hux's gaping one, breathed into him with a  breath colder than any winter Hux had lived through. Hux felt himself retreating as he inhaled it, sinking into the back of his head, becoming an observer in his own body.

"BEN!" cracked a voice from across the clearing. Ben withdrew from Hux, pulling away from his mouth and out of his body. Hux fell to his knees, gasping in the warm evening air.

"Do it," he croaked out. 

"What-"

And then the sagebrush around them burst into flames, their dry leaves igniting into the sky.

"No," Ben said, horror in his voice. 

"It's over," Rey shouted, entering the ring of fire through the narrow dirt path that had led Hux here. "Leave Ben and go back to where you came."

The fire grew around them, catching on the oak tree and spreading in radius. Hux covered his mouth with his arm, his shirt sleeve filtering the worst of the smoke. Rey ran up to Ben on swift feet, dodging embers that blew into the circle. 

"Rey," Ben cried out, voice raw in it's relief. The monster shook Ben's head, nearly snapping it from the speed. "No," it roared.

Rey pulled a stick from the ground, it's spindly leaves and juniper berries burning at the other end, and swung it at his face. Ben tried to stumble back, but Hux was there, arms wrapped around his legs, cutting him down at the knees. Ben fell over him and onto his back, clawing at a the burn that striped down his face. Rey jumped atop Ben, her knees pinning him at the shoulders, bringing the flaming branch down to his face. 

"Get out of him," Rey yelled over the inferno's wind. The blaze had grown, licking up the drought stricken hills in all directions, trapping the four of them together in the middle. Ben convulsed in the heat, thrashing in Hux's hold while his blackened skin melted off him. 

Rey brought the burning stick to Ben's throat, paying no heed to the fire nearing her grip. Ben gagged in it's heat until blood burst from his mouth, covering Rey. When he breathed, it was wet and ragged, but the small voice that begged, "Rey," was Ben's own. 

"Ben," Rey and Hux yelled together, hoisting him up to his feet. 

"Are you ok?" Hux asked, wiping the blood from his mouth.

"I am,"Ben sobbed, clutching close to Hux. 

"We need to go! Follow the rocks," Rey yelled, pointing to the face of a rock that sloped sharply down. They dragged Ben there together, and on first footfall Ben yelled, his barefeet flush against the heated stones. 

"Quickly," Hux yelled. They ran down as best they could, carrying Ben's large body, trying to spare him the pain. All around them, the flamer were walls, twisting in the sky like lattice. 

When they reached the bottom, a crowd had already gathered, dragging buckets of water and watching in horror. 

"What happened?" screamed a policeman. 

"We saved him from a mad man," Hux said, clutching Ben to his side. 

"We need a doctor," Rey pleaded. The policeman ran off towards the town, promising to grab the nearest physician. 

They laid Ben down on the dirt road beneath an orange tree. To Hux's eye he looked better already, the blackened skin having melted away and leaving behind flesh that had the coloring after being scabbed over. His eyes were normal, if not bloodshot, and they were staring up at Hux with such gratitude and affection that it penetrated Hux's guard. Hux grabbed Ben's hand, relieved to feel warmth in his palm.

"It's gone?" Hux asked.

"It is," Ben smiled. It was weak and worn, but all together the same one from Hux's dreams and Rey's photograph. The blood was gone from his mouth when Hux chanced a kiss. 

"Thank fuck," Hux stuttered.

"I'll be thankful once we have him in a bed," Rey murmured. 

Hux looked back to her, prepared to see condemnation or shame. Instead, she was pale and covered in sweat, worn from the encounter. The front of her tunic was still soaked in Ben's blood, dripping down her arms like it was just spilled.

"Rey, are you ok?" Hux asked. 

"I think it's just the smoke," Rey said, waving away Hux's concerns with a weak hand. "I'm sure I'll feel better once we get away from the fire."

Ben's jolted below Hux's palm, sitting up at his waist. "Rey!"

The blood on Rey moved up her body, rolling up her arms swiftly, thickening until it was near viscous when it reached her mouth. Rey tried to scream, but the blood choked her, filling her mouth and nostrils. Hux leap to his feet and grabbed her arms. "Rey!" he screamed, helpless to the horror. 

All the bones in her body cracked the moment the blood disappeared fully. When she gripped Hux back, her grip was strong and ice cold. And then, it was over- when she opened her eyes, they were dark as night. 

"Armitage," she said in a lower voice, the syllables of his name lilting up and down as the monster got a feel for his new body. "You almost had me there."

Rey reared her head back and slammed it against Hux's own, sending him stumbling backwards. Ben tried to get to his feet but his body withheld him, leaving him crawling on the ground and cursing.

"Let her go," Ben begged. "Take me back, just let her go!"

"I don't think so," Rey said, flexing her hands. "I'm going to take her with me and have some fun."

Hux lunged at her, filled with Ben's horror and love, determined to save her. But Rey was stronger than the two of them and with the devil within fueling her, easily handled him, kicking him in his chest and leaving his struggle for breath. 

"Don't do this," Ben cried.

Rey walked to him, kicking him on his back and grinding her heel right over Ben's heart.

"It was a nice ride, Ben," she said, mockingly sweet. "But Rey and I are heading out East. I hear the Old World is going to be quite a circus."

She brought her leg back and kicked Ben in the skull, knocking him out cold. Hux scrambled to Ben's body, covering it with his own.

"How noble," Rey cooed at him. "You were quite fun," she said, "Too bad I didn't get to rip that throat out, but maybe I'll come back for you both when I'm done with my fun."

She turned away, heading down the road, away from the fire into the silver light of the night. The urge to follow her was strong, to chase her down until there was nothing but ashes left, but Ben was lifeless below him, and Hux wasn't leaving him again.

"Don't worry Ben," Hux promised, holding his hand so hard he thought he might break the bones in their hands. "We won't let her get far." When Hux looked back towards the road, she was gone, disappeared on the Eastward Winds.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first big bang participation and what a rollercoaster it was! I am so lucky to have collaborated with [littleststarfghter](http://littleststarfighter.tumblr.com/). Beyond her amazing art, she was such a kind, supportive and encouraging collaborator. Even when life got hectic, it was wonderful to have her encouragements and to commiserate with another going through the creative process.
> 
> This is my first work back in fandom after quite some time. It may be rough around the corners, but I am so grateful that I got to write again for this wonderful fandom.


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